


I Want to Hear You Whisper (settle down inside my love)

by chicklette



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Falling In Love, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Minor Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, friends who have sex, sam and nat are over it, sex instead of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 08:33:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19314490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicklette/pseuds/chicklette
Summary: “We should fuck.”“Whaat?” The word comes bubbling out of Steve, buoyed by his laughter.“Why not?” Bucky says, eyes and mouth both smiling.  They’re both a little boozy, just getting back to Steve’s from a Met’s game, and flipping through their phones, trying to decide on food.“I don’t…Buck!”  Steve’s flustered.  Of course he’s thought about it, of course.  Bucky’s gorgeous, dark hair and pretty eyes, his body long and lithe from years of dance.  Steve’s not blind: of course he’s noticed Bucky.But they’re best friends. Adding something like sex to their relationship would be like playing with fire.Wouldn’t it?





	I Want to Hear You Whisper (settle down inside my love)

**Author's Note:**

> Very much love to writeonclara, who beta'd this for me on *very* short notice and made it a better fic in the process. Any errors are mine. Much of the good punctuation is hers. <3

  
  


**Now**

Steve looks down at his phone again, checking the time.  Bucky’s already ten minutes late, which isn’t unusual, but it still amps up his nerves.   

“The wine list, sir?”  A waiter is at Steve’s elbow, holding out a menu.  He takes it, looks at it without really seeing it, then wavers.  Should he get a bottle? God knows he’d like a drink, but he has no idea how this is going to go.  

Then the rational part of his brain kicks in, and he realizes that either way, they’re both going to want a glass of wine.  He orders a bottle of pinot noir and checks his phone again.

When he made the reservation, when he’d asked for the window seat, he’d thought it was so that he could watch for Bucky.  Instead, he finds himself tugging at his cuffs, glancing at the menu, and fussing with his phone. He opens a news article only to close it again, then opens his email.  He starts cleaning out his spam folder when he hears Bucky call his name.

“Sorry about that,” he says, breathless, like he ran from the subway, and he probably did.  Timeliness was never one of Bucky’s strong suits. 

A bloom of hope shimmies through Steve as he takes Bucky in.  He’s wearing a dark gray jeans and a chunky gray sweater that makes the blue in his eyes practically glow.  He looks dressed up. He looks good. Steve has just enough time to wonder if--

“My last meeting ran late.  The school board wants us to present our ideas for next year’s curriculum, so we’ve been busting ass trying to get it together.”  He runs his hand through his hair and it’s a mess, flopping into his eyes, boyish and charming. “Anyway,” he says. “Sorry I’m late.”

When he stops to take a look at the table, he notices the white tablecloth, and the bottle of wine with a glass poured.  “Fancy,” he says, pulling back to look at Steve. “What, are we celebrating something?”

Steve feels the blush climbing up his neck, so he ducks his head, cups the back of his neck with his hand before looking up.  “Nah, just having a treat yoself moment.” He winks at Bucky and catches the way that Bucky looks him up and down. 

“If you say so,” Bucky says, then sits and grabs his glass of wine.  “Cheers to Treat Yoself Tuesday.”

Steve looks at him, and he can’t help but see a dozen other images laid atop this one: Bucky at eight, offering Steve his hand, pulling him up from the ground.  Bucky at twelve, eyes bright with excitement after winning the district soccer championship. Bucky at sixteen, face flushed and asking a girl out on a date. Bucky at twenty, admitting he’s bi.  Bucky at twenty, kissing Steve with a laugh on his lips. Bucky at twenty-three, introducing Steve to the girl he hasn’t been able to stop talking about. Bucky at twenty-four, stoic at his father’s funeral, donning white gloves and giving Steve one long, lost look, before turing to do his duty. Bucky at twenty-five, sun-browned and gorgeous, making lewd promises with his eyes as they ride the train home from Coney Island.  Bucky at twenty-eight, asking Steve if he’s sure as they look at diamond rings, and then two months later, holding Steve as he cries at the airport while Peggy Carter flies out of his life. Bucky at twenty-nine, crying his own tears, snuffling against Steve’s chest, trying to forget a girl named Maggie. Bucky getting his teaching credential, Bucky getting a permanent job, Bucky saying good-bye to his mother as she packed up her things and headed back to Indiana.  Bucky. 

Over the years, they’ve fallen in and out of bed, but their friendship remained true.  Whether they were on again or off again didn’t matter. What matters is that they are always Steve and Bucky.

God, he’s been an idiot. 

“Seriously, though,” Bucky says, setting his glass down and leveling Steve with a steady look.  “What’re you buttering me up for?”

“Nothing!” Steve laughs, his nerves making it come out sharper than it should.  “Just...sick of pizza and wings,” he says, referencing Angelo’s, their usual weeknight hang-out.

Bucky gives him a skeptical look.  “Yeah, okay. But if you’re about to ask for a kidney, you’re out of luck.  I’m using the one I got.”

“Fuck off,” Steve says, laughing, and picks up the menu.  Sure, Terra Mia’s a nice place, but it’s not that nice. “How is Becca, by the way?”

Bucky’s sister was diagnosed with a somewhat rare form of kidney disease in her early teens.  By the time Steve and Bucky were graduating high school, she’d needed a new kidney if she hoped to see her own graduation.  Bucky agreed to donate without thinking twice, but Steve would never forget the frightened look in Bucky’s eyes as Steve said goodbye, just before Bucky went into surgery.  

Since then, Bucky’s made a regular joke about offering--or not--his organs to a friend in need.  It’s endearing because Steve knows the truth: Bucky would absolutely give up a kidney, part of his liver, whatever it took, to keep the ones he loves whole and happy. 

“Becca’s great,” Bucky says, eyes shining.  She’d met and married David Proctor about three years ago, after a whirlwind romance.  They were both studying ancient languages, and were preparing for a six-month research tour of South America.  Bucky couldn’t have been more happy for her. 

It’s a good look on him. 

They chat a little bit before the waiter comes to take their orders.  Predictably, Bucky goes for the osso bucco, but Steve opts for a spicy seafood stew in a rich tomato broth. They make small talk until the food comes, and then they absorb themselves in that for a while, trading bites and stealing bits from one another’s plates. 

It’s so easy, and Steve realizes that more than anything, he wants this.  He wants Bucky every night, coming in flushed and late, tucking into a meal that Steve’s cooked for him.  It’s intimate. They’re intimate, in ways that go far beyond having their hands in one another’s pants. 

By the time dessert comes, Steve’s resolve reasserts itself.  The two of them take turns eating bites of tiramisu from the same plate, when Steve sets down his fork. 

“Hey, Buck,” he says, and suddenly he’s got Bucky’s full attention.  “There, ah, there actually is something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh yeah?” Bucky asks.  He’s giving Steve that flirty, under-the-lashes look that he knows Steve can’t resist.  

Steve already knows what Bucky’s thinking: that they’ll wrap up here and maybe head back to Bucky’s, with the intention of being fully naked within thirty seconds of closing the front door.

It’s not that Steve doesn’t want that.  He does. He does. It’s just that Steve also wants so much more.  Finally, he knows what he wants. Now he has to have the courage to find out if it’s something Bucky’s willing to give.  

With a reflexive smile, Steve ducks his head, then gathers his strength.  It would be so easy to fall back into bed with Bucky. He’s tempted to try, just to see if maybe this is the time it sticks, if maybe he can’t coax Bucky over that bridge from lust and friendship, to love. 

But no.  It’s a set-up for failure, right out of the gate.  He doesn’t need Sam to tell him that; he guesses he’s finally grown enough to see it for himself.  Besides, the next time he takes Bucky to bed, it has to be for real. He thinks anything else might break him. 

“I knew it,” Bucky says.  “What’re you buttering me up for?”  The look on his face is amused and his tone is teasing. Steve knows already how this is going to go.  It took him weeks to come to terms with this; how the hell is Bucky supposed to handle it any better? 

Steve looks Bucky in the eyes, squares his shoulders back and knocks his chin up a hair. If he’s facing this, it’s going to be head on.

“I’m in love with you,” Steve says, pushing the words out before he has the chance to back down. 

Steeling himself, he watches Bucky’s face, trying to gauge his reaction.

Bucky doesn’t say anything, but the amusement falls from his face as he realizes Steve is serious. 

He doesn’t say anything for a long time.  Steve watches emotions flit across his face, until something like anger ticks at his jaw, creases between his eyebrows.  

“No,” Bucky says, and shakes his head.  “You don’t get to do this, not after--. No.”  Leaning back in his chair, Bucky looks around the restaurant, eyes squinting.  One lock of hair brushes the top of his cheek. When he focuses on Steve again, he looks devastated, just for a second, before Steve sees the anger rise again.   

Standing, Bucky pulls out his wallet and throws a couple of twenties on the table. 

“Buck, please,” Steve says, reaching to hold on to him.

When he levels his gaze at Steve, there’s naked fury in his eyes.  “Fuck you, Rogers,” Bucky spits, the words low and venomous. They hit Steve right in the gut.

Then he turns, and walks away, leaving Steve with damning last words.  It could have gone better, but Steve’s not at all sure how it could have gone worse. 

 

He’s walking to the subway, shoulders up around his ears when his phone buzzes.  He can’t deny he’s hopeful as he pulls out his phone, but his heart fails when he sees Sam’s name.

**Sam:** U ok?

**SGR:** …

**Sam:** Delancey’s?  I can be there in 20.

Steve thinks of a dozen different responses.  He should have known Sam would be in touch. The first thing Bucky probably did was call Nat. 

He knows that eventually he and Bucky will patch things up; they always do.  But right now? His best friend is seeking the comfort of someone else. It stings in a way that Steve isn’t prepared to handle. 

**SGR:** Sure. See you.

 

Thirty minutes later, Steve’s throwing back his second whiskey while Sam nurses an Old Fashioned.

They haven’t said much to one another, Sam giving Steve the space to work up his words.  It’s one of the reasons their friendship has worked. He knows that when Steve gets flustered he’ll either close down or punch up.  By giving him the space for a third option, they usually get to the heart of the matter a whole lot quicker. 

Finally, Sam sets his glass down and looks over at Steve.  “Man, what did you think was going to happen?”

Steve huffs out a sigh.  “Call me crazy, but I thought he might be happy.  I at least thought he’d want to try. Thought he’d give me a shot.”

“And you just woke up this morning thinking, ‘Damn, I’ve been sleeping on Bucky Barnes all this time’?”

He thinks about it, not sure how to explain things to Sam.  He’s been sitting on this for a few weeks now. Ever since the day they were over at Sam and Nat’s, watching a football game.  Bucky and Steve were sitting next to each other, each of them ribbing the other, running commentary on the game, making smartass calls and mocking the refs, making enough of a commotion that Sam pointedly picked up the remote and turned the volume way up. 

Steve took that as his cue to pick up some of the empty beer bottles and refresh the snacks that Sam had set out.  As he stepped into the kitchen, he found Bucky right on his heels.

“Think fast,” Bucky said, grabbing a dish towel and wrapping it up to snap at Steve.  He got one good hit, Steve skittering his hips sideways before looking for something to retaliate with.  The best he came up with was an oven mit, which he used as a shield to try to get close enough to get the towel away from Bucky.  

Bucky laughed, curling in on himself, and Steve twisted over him, tickling and grabbing at the laughing man in his arms.  He got close enough to lay a lick against the side of Bucky’s neck, breathed him in with a gasp, and his heart did a triple jump in his chest.

When he pulled away, Bucky was pulling a face, nose wrinkled and wiping at the side of his neck with the towel.  He was smiling big enough that his mouth is bracketed with lines, and his eyes danced with amusement and Steve thought  _ oh fuck, I’m in love with him _ . 

It hit him hard, like a punch to the solar plexus, and he was winded enough that he wanted to double over, hands on his knees, to try to catch his breath. 

Watching Steve, Bucky began to sober, getting up to come stand by Steve’s side.  “Hey, pal, you okay?”

Steve nodded, because he wanted to be okay.  “Yeah, just...give me a second,” he said, and walked to the bathroom, closing the door.  

It...he wasn’t expecting this, and when digging around at his heart, he found sore spots with Bucky’s name all over them.  He felt like an idiot. How long was this going on? 

He turned on the cold water and splashed his face.  When he tried to get at what he was feeling, why he was feeling it, all he could sefie was Bucky’s face: smiling, laughing, pouting.  Earnest, or broken hearted. He knows just what Bucky looks like when he comes, teeth sunk into his bottom lip, brows knit, and then mouth open and soft, as the pleasure takes him and breaks him, makes him its own.  He knows Bucky by  _ smell. _

Jesus, Steve remembers thinking to himself.  It’s been years. 

It’s been  _ years. _

His mind trips back to that one summer...Brooklyn hot and humid, the two of them…

Steve blinks.  

“Hey,” Sam says, his voice doing that soft thing that it does when Steve gets a little wrecked.  So he’s not an introspective guy. Sue him.

Breathing out a sigh, Steve downs the rest of his whiskey, gives Sam a baleful look.  

“You know, when we first met,” Sam says, “I couldn’t figure it out.  Either you were in love with him and he’d turned you down, or you were in love with him and you didn’t know it.  By the time I did figure it out, I knew better than to say anything. I’m sorry, Steve.”

“Yeah, well, that and a couple of bucks’ll buy me a cup of coffee.”

Sam sighs.  “Yeah. So now what?”

Steve shrugs.  “Wait for him to cool off. Plead my case.  Or not. I don’t know. I kind of didn’t think of an exit strategy, you know?”

Sam gives him a look and Steve chuckles, ducking his head.  “Yeah, yeah, I never do,” he says, which is enough to get Sam to crack a smile.

“You gonna be okay?” Sam asks.  

Shrugging, Steve takes a quick inventory.  His heart feels hammered, but when he thinks about the long term, he’s sure they’ll be okay.  Even if Bucky doesn’t return his affections in that way, hell, even if he never has Bucky in his bed again, he’s sure they’ll end up okay.  

Won’t they?

When the bill comes, Sam gives Steve a look and Steve pulls out his wallet.

They walk to the subway together, and as they’re about to walk to their respective platforms, Steve grabs Sam by the arm.  

“Did he show up at your place?  How did he look?”

The look Sam gives him is so damn tired that Steve has the good grace to look properly abashed. 

“You remember when Nat and I split up?  When she took that promotion and went to Russia for a year?”

Steve nods.  It was a shitty, shitty time for everyone.  Sam asked Nat to marry him, and she responded by leaving the country.  When she came back, everything was tense: no one wanted to choose sides, but no one wanted to be in the same room with the two of them, either.  It’s not that they fought, it’s that the air took on a level of permafrost anytime the two of them were in the same room. Finally Bruce sat them down and explained that they were putting everyone in the middle, even though they were trying not to.  He got through to them, and Steve and Bucky were the Best Men at their wedding two years ago. 

But Steve remembers the in-between time, when everyone was miserable. 

Steve nods.  ‘Yeah, but--”

“This is gonna be like that, but probably worse.  Nat and I already agreed, we’re not playing go-between here.”

“I know, Sam.  I don’t--I didn’t mean to ask you to.”

“I know, but you did, and that’s not fair.”

Steve must look some kind of way because Sam’s face softens.  

He pulls Steve into a hug.  “For what it’s worth, I’m pulling for you.”  A train rumbles up and Sam gives Steve one last squeeze, then lets go.  “That’s me. Call me tomorrow,” he says, turning toward the train. “And get some sleep.”

.

Steve doesn’t.

He lays in bed, worrying about Bucky, about what he’s doing.  He wonders why Bucky’s so mad at him. At first he thinks it’s because Steve tried to wine and dine him.  Then he thinks it’s because Bucky thought Steve put him on the spot, which, okay, he did. 

After a while though, he runs out of maybes and what-ifs, and is left with the reality that Bucky is mad at him because he doesn’t return Steve’s feelings, and that this is going to be a problem.

It’s okay.  He knew going in that it might go like this.  They’re best friends. In hindsight, he concedes it was probably a mistake being occasional fuck buddies.  It was probably only a matter of time before one of them caught feelings. Only a matter of time before Steve, or Bucky, was mooning around after the other, wondering--

The thought brings him up short. 

Once Steve admitted to himself what he was feeling, he realized that the feelings went back years.  He wonders if Bucky ever felt the same, if he was ever on the other side of this...this... _ God. _

He gets up, has a glass of water, and thinks.  He tries to remember how they got into this mess, tries to remember Bucky in love.

.

**Then**

“We should fuck.” 

“Whaat?” The word comes bubbling out of Steve, buoyed by his laughter.

“Why not?” Bucky says, eyes and mouth both smiling.  They’re both a little boozy, just getting back to Steve’s from a Met’s game, and flipping through their phones, trying to decide on food. 

“I don’t…Buck!”  Steve’s flustered.  Of course he’s thought about it, of course.  Bucky’s gorgeous, dark hair and pretty eyes, his body long and lithe from years of dance.  Steve’s not blind: of course he’s  _ noticed _ Bucky.  

But they’re best friends. Adding something like sex to their relationship would be like playing with fire.  

Wouldn’t it?

“Think about it,” Bucky says, turning from his spot on the couch to look at Steve.  “We already know each other, we already like each other, so instead of spending all that time and energy trying to get laid by some rando, we can just…”  Bucky leans back and spreads his arms, cocking his head and looking at Steve from under his lashes, just the way Steve’s seen him do to a dozen girls and a couple of guys, a flirtatious grin on his lips.

“It’d be too weird,” Steve says, but even as he says it, he knows it’s a lie. It wouldn’t be weird at all, and the more he thinks about it, the more he’s warming to the idea. Bucky’s beautiful, inside and out, and he and Steve...they could...

“No, that’s what’s perfect!” Bucky says, and stands to pace.  He’s always been so physical, frenetic energy buzzing under his skin, always in motion, be it tapping his foot, dancing at their favorite bar, or helping clean up after a party.  Even when he’s deep in concentration, he manages to keep moving.

“Look,” Bucky says.  “What’s the worst part about sleeping with someone new?  The awkwardness, am I right? But this is you and me, so nothing to be awkward about.  And we don’t have to guess at what the other person likes, or wonder if we’re doing it right, because we’re friends, so we can just say what we want.  Plus,” Bucky says, pacing into the kitchen and coming back with a couple of bottles of beer. “No more hooking up with shitty people because we just want to get laid - we’ll have each for that.” 

Steve thinks about it, then, really thinks about it.  This thing with him and Bucky, it could work. They’ve been best friends since grade school, closer than, really.  He trusts Bucky, heart and soul, and he knows Bucky trusts him the same. Really, he’s surprised they never thought about dating before.  He looks up at Bucky with what feels like new eyes. It will be easy, come so naturally, so--

“We will be,” Bucky says, “friends with benefits goalz.”   He grins and hands Steve his beer. “Plus, we won’t have to worry about someone catching feelings.  I mean, if it hasn’t happened by now...” Bucky tapers off and takes a pull from his beer before turning to Steve and smiling.  “What do you say, fuck buddy, you want to try this?”

Just like that, the thing that was blooming inside of Steve’s chest curls back in on itself. Oh, he thinks.  Okay, it’s like that then. 

He smiles at Bucky, because Bucky’s smiling at him, and it’s reflexive at this point. He clinks his beer against Bucky’s, tips the bottle to his lips and drinks long enough to convince himself that the sinking feeling in his stomach is just nerves, and not disappointment. 

“Sure,” Steve says, finally finding his voice.  “Why not? Let’s try it.”

 

It goes better than expected. 

There’s awkwardness, a lot of it, but it gives way to anticipation as their bodies take over.  They’re both young, just twenty-one, and the lush hormones of youth buzz under their skin. Bucky leans in to kiss him, grinning into it, and Steve smiles back.  He watches as Bucky closes his eyes, stares at the lay of his lashes against his cheek, even as he feels Bucky’s lips press against his. It’s late summer and Bucky has the lightest smattering of freckles across the tops of his cheeks.  

Bucky’s kiss is insistent, and before long, he’s straddling Steve, the two of them grinding against one another, breathing heavy into each kiss. 

“Fuck, that feels good,” Bucky groans. 

“Yeah,” Steve answers, then pulls Bucky’s ass down as he thrusts up.  Sure, he’s going to have an imprint of his zipper on his dick, he doesn’t care in the least because this--making out on the couch, moving toward an excruciatingly slow, but inevitable release, is probably one of Steve’s favorite things in the world. 

It feels good to come, no doubt about it.  But Steve can hit orgasm in about three minutes flat under the heat of the shower.  This, though... Sometimes he thinks the lead up is almost better. Sometimes he thinks that having his hands and his lap full of someone else, fingertips slipping under clothes, skating over smooth skin, the weight of them as they writhe against him, both of them breathing the same air...well, sometimes, Steve likes that part better.  He likes the anticipation, loves the feeling of getting ramped up and up and up, loves getting his partner off and making them feel as good he possibly can. 

Fingers drifting to Bucky’s belt, Steve hesitates long enough for Bucky to pull away. Bucky doesn’t pull away, though.  Instead, his hands go to Steve’s belt, and before he knows it, their flies are open and they’re both groping at each other.  When Steve wraps his hand around Bucky’s dick, Bucky leans back, tilts his head back, and lets out the softest groan, something born at the back of his throat, before hissing out a “yessss,” and that’s all Steve needs to keep going. 

He feels like two people, there inside his skin.  Part of him is loving this, using his body to give someone else pleasure, getting some of his own back, watching as Bucky makes faces and sounds that are, each one of them, bright and new to Steve.  Part of him though is nervous, a little scared. This has the potential to turn into a bomb, something that could really harm them. 

It’s surreal, seeing Bucky this way, watching the way he surrenders himself so easily to the physical. 

Steve twists his wrist and rubs his thumb against Bucky’s slit, and watches as Bucky goes still, mouth dropping open, silent,  before a shudder runs through his body. He opens his eyes and looks down and Steve, heavy lidded, mouth wet, and well on his way to looking fucked out.  Steve wants to get him there.

“Bedroom,” Steve says, voice hoarse and thick.  “C’mon.” 

They stumble to the bedroom, losing shirts and pants as they go.  Steve pushes Bucky back against the bed, and he falls, bounces, then scrambles back.  Steve can see the outline of his cock through his dark boxer briefs, the clingy kind that drive Steve crazy when he wears them, but that Bucky makes look damn good. 

“Top or bottom?” Steve asks.  He walks to the nightstand to pull out the lube and condoms.  He’s not ready for them yet, but his next move depends on Bucky’s answer.

Bucky doesn’t say anything, and when Steve looks over at him, he’s smirking, his hand on his cock through his briefs.  

“I’m gonna take a chance and say bottom,” Bucky says.

“A chance, huh?”

“C’mon, Rogers,” Bucky says, with a slow blink and a lick of his lips. “Everyone knows you have a big dick.”

“What the fuck?” Steve says, laughing.  He can feel the flush spreading down his neck to his chest. “Why does everyone think that?”

“Because senior year Kelly Martin told everyone your dick is huge.”

“Well, that’s not--it’s just a rumor!”

Getting to his knees, Bucky crawls across the bed to where Steve is standing. He bites his lip, squints up at Steve for a moment, then reaches forward and runs the tip of his finger up the length of Steve’s cock through his boxers.  “Yeah,” Bucky says, licking his lips. “Thought so.”

The touch sends a jolt of want through Steve, and he finds himself dry mouthed, and breathless. “Been thinking about my dick, Barnes?”

“Fuck off,” Bucky says, but gives it a squeeze before he pushes Steve’s boxers down his thighs.  They both watch as his dick springs free, the tip already purpling. Bucky licks his lips and Steve has to brace himself against the desire to push his cock against those slick lips.

As if reading his mind, Bucky leans forward and presses a soft kiss right at the head of Steve’s cock.  

“Don’t pull my hair,” he says, looking up at Steve, before licking his lips again.  “And don’t come. I still want you to fuck me.”

“You know if I come I’ll be ready to go again in like, ten minutes,” Steve says, because it’s true.  He’s only twenty-one for God’s sake. 

“Fine,” Bucky says, before taking a swipe at Steve’s slit with the tip of his tongue.  “But warn a guy, would ya?”

Before Steve can agree, Bucky’s got his mouth around the head of Steve’s cock and Steve goes non-verbal.  He remembers just in time about the hair pulling, and he keeps his hips as still as he can, his toes digging into the carpet for purchase. He’s ready to come in what feels like seconds, but he gets his revenge moments later, when Bucky shoots off before Steve even gets a second finger inside of him.

This is the time it’s going to get awkward, when both of them have come and now they’re left with the reality of what they’ve done.

It doesn’t though.

Instead they talk about their various kinks, the dos and don’ts, (“You come on my face and we’re done,” Bucky says. “Fair,” Steve replies.  “You come in my ass and we’re done,” Steve answers. “You’d fuck without a condom?” “No,” Steve replies. “That’s the point.”)

In the end, they agree that dirty talk is okay, Daddy talk is off the table, and condoms are mandatory.  The rest they figure out as they go, and by the time they’re both sated, the sky’s gone dark and Steve thinks that this might work out okay after all.  

Still.

It comes as a shock a few weeks later when Bucky mentions having a date.  

“That’s--that’s great,” Steve says.  It’s not great. It’s not not great either.  It’s weird.

“It’s weird,” Bucky says.  “I know we’re not like that, but it’s still weird.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, letting out a sigh. It’s a relief to be able to talk about this in the open. And then, “I don’t think I want to do this if one of us is dating, you know? I think it would make things too complicated.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and there’s a little bit of...relief? Something like that, in his voice and on his face. 

Okay then.  Another rule to keep things clear.  They can do this.

 

And he’s right: In the end, it goes okay. They date other people, and they treat each other like best friends and sometimes they have sex, and the sex is always good. 

“I don’t get it,” Sam said to him once.  Bucky and Steve were on-again, with Bucky flirting outrageously with Steve, and Steve alternating between flushing red at the attention and anticipating getting home and getting Bucky alone and naked. 

Steve shrugs and feels his face flush.  “Nothing to get. We’re just friends, Sam.”

Sam chuffs a laugh and cocks an eyebrow at Steve. “If you two are just friends, then what does that make us, passing acquaintances?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “It’s not like that, and you know it.  We just help each other out now and then.”

Sam looks like he wants to say more, but Nat wanders over to sit in his lap, so Steve is spared the lecture. This thing with Bucky, he doesn’t know how to explain it, and he doesn’t want to think too hard about it, either. 

In the words of the century’s greatest poet: It is what it is. 

.

By the time they’re both twenty-five,  they have their on-again, off-again thing down. They both made a commitment to put their friendship first, and they have, always.  Bucky was there for Steve when his mom got sick, and then got better, and Steve was there for Bucky when his dad got sick, and didn’t. 

Those were the times when the sex between them was more comfort than pleasure, when one would take the other in his arms, and guide him through the terrors to a place where nothing hurt, at least for a little while.  Those were the things, the kindnesses born out of friendship that made it easy for Steve to say yes, even when everyone around him thought they were crazy. 

It was fine.  It was more than fine.  Until…

.

When Bucky’s dad gets sick, he takes a semester off school and moves home to help out.  After he dies, Winnie puts the house up for sale and moves back to Indiana, to be near her folks and her sister.  That left Bucky without a place to live for the summer, which in turn led to him pleading his case to Steve. Steve happened to have a spare room that he used as a studio on days he felt inspired.  And even though they’re not “on again” at the time, Steve was helpless to say no. 

 

Bucky moves in on a Tuesday.  By Thursday they’ve started flirting with each other, and Saturday morning sees Bucky waking up in Steve’s bed, stretching like a cat in a patch of morning sun. 

“Fuck, that was good,” he says, cracking one eye open to smile at Steve.  

“Yeah,” Steve says, stretching and sitting up.  “It was.”

“Well, I’ll say one thing for this neighborhood.  My favorite bootycall is very conveniently located.”

“Shut up,” Steve says, feeling his face heat.  This thing with Bucky...Steve’s never sure what to think of it.  Everyone thinks they have this epic on-again, off-again romance, but it’s never been like that.  It’s just...best friends, scratching an itch. That’s all. 

Still, the chemistry between them has always been good, and Steve won’t deny he’s looking forward to the regular sex.  This thing with him and Bucky, it burns hot and bright for days or weeks, then fades out when one of them makes a date with someone else.  Sometimes Steve wonders what it might be like if they’d let themselves get comfortable, really see if they have what it takes to make it.

But before that can happen, one or the other of them will say, “Hey, I’ve got a date Friday night,” and then the other will smile and say congratulations, and the two of them stop fucking until the next time they’re both single and horny.  

He doesn’t think they’re hurting each other, and while he knows their friends don’t quite get it, he also knows that it’s not their concern.  As long as he and Bucky are good, as friends or something more, Steve knows he’ll be okay.

It goes on like that for a couple of months, from the end of the semester into the heat of the summer, the two of them the best of friends by day, and burning the sheets up at night.  

When Steve wakes up the morning after his birthday, he’d been sucked and fucked sore the night before.  He feels filthy and indulgent, and for a moment he lays there, stretching lazily and watching Bucky sleep.  His freckles have come out again, and Steve tries to chart them, making up constellations, stars that light the fire that is Bucky Barnes.  He’s almost at the point of feeling a certain way, of really looking at that something soft and curious behind his ribs, when Bucky speaks.

“I can feel you looking at me, creeper.”

“Am not,” Steve says, but can’t help the laugh tumbling out of his mouth.

“I’ll give you a handy in the shower if you let me sleep another hour.”

Steve laughs harder.  “Thanks, Buck, but I think I’m good.”  He leans up on his elbow and gives Bucky a kiss on the cheek, before rolling out of bed.  “I’m gonna put up the coffee, maybe go grab a bagel. I’ll leave you to your beauty rest, princess.”

“God, shut up,” Bucky says, rolling over and drawing the pillow over his head.  “Save me a bagel.”

“Yes, highness.”

Steve chuckles to himself and the moment, whatever it might have been, is gone.  

The summer rolls on, until suddenly it’s August.  Bucky’s skin is golden, the way it gets when they spend too much time at the beach, and Steve’s latest favorite thing is peeling wet trunks off of him, until he gets to the cool, white skin beneath.  Under the lukewarm spray of the shower, he gets on his knees and tongues his way across that pale, damp flesh, breathing in the smell and taste of him, taking him all the way down and bringing him off, until Bucky comes down his throat with a deep groan. 

This is the longest they’ve been “on again,” and neither seems in a hurry to find someone to date.  Steve wonders if that’ll change once Bucky finds a place and moves back out. He wonders if the fall will bring unfamiliar faces into their lives, someone so shiny and new that the other can’t resist. 

He feels twisted up and out of sorts.  It’s too much like a relationship, Bucky living here, sleeping in his bed.  Steve feels like he has to keep reminding himself that this is only temporary. Right? 

.

Steve wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling like something’s startled him awake.  When he opens his eyes, he sees Bucky, mirroring his pose, looking back at him. The air is still and quiet in the dim light of the moon. 

When he thinks back on this moment, and he’ll think about it often, he’ll never be sure which one of them moves first.  Sometimes it’s him, and sometimes it’s Bucky, and sometimes Steve thinks that if he could just figure out that moment, everything would be different. 

In the moment, though, it doesn’t matter.  Steve has his hands and mouth full of Bucky, hot kisses and slick skin, his hands in Bucky’s hair as it tumbles down around them.  He can feel the sharpness of Bucky’s cheekbones under his thumb, the scrape of the stubble that’s been leaving a rash between his thighs. 

Rolling them over, Steve hitches one of Bucky’s thighs up with his own, spreading his legs, spreading Bucky open. Neither of them is hard, not yet, but they’re getting there.  Steve wants to get Bucky there, feels like he has to, has to take him apart. He wants to swathe Bucky in pleasure, press it right into his skin until it’s the only thing Bucky knows. 

He takes his time: steady hands and careful teeth, his tongue playing every clever trick it’s ever learned. Bucky writhes underneath him, fingers clutching at Steve’s hands, his hair, and Steve smiles against Bucky’s skin, feeling the tension in this arms, his thighs, knowing that he’s the one that put it there. 

There’s a moment, just as he’s pushing in, when the two of them stop, stare at each other.  Steve feels wonder that this is something that he gets to have: this incredible man, funny and charming and kind, is opening himself up for Steve, letting Steve inside of him. Bucky stares back at him, an unreadable look on his face, and they hold like that for long, quiet moments, breathing each other in, until Steve can’t stand it anymore.  He blinks, takes Bucky’s mouth with his, and presses inside of Bucky with a single heavy thrust. 

They move together, slow and steady in the moonlight, Bucky arching against Steve, his fingers holding tight to Steve’s biceps, heels digging in to Steve’s ass, breath coming in steady pants.  Through it all, they hold each other’s gaze, fingers laced together, moving in perfect time. Steve sees when Bucky gets close, needs more, and he gives it to him, would give him anything; Bucky wouldn’t even have to ask. 

When Bucky comes, it’s with a silent scream, mouth open, eyes closed tight, head thrown back, and body trembling. 

It makes Steve dizzy, all at once. Bucky is so beautiful. 

Blinking his eyes back open, he looks up at Steve, then surges up, catching Steve’s mouth with his, wet and sloppy, and breathing hard.  Something about it, the urgency behind it, pushes Steve past his limits and he comes hard, face buried in Bucky’s shoulder, teeth snapping shut as he grinds out, “Buck,” and then there’s nothing but Bucky, gentling him down with light hands, soft presses of his mouth against Steve’s neck and shoulder. 

Steve has no inclination to move, but he worries about Bucky holding his position for so long, so he eases away, but then swoops in for one last crushing kiss.  Bucky blinks up at him, lazy smile and sleepy eyes, and Steve doesn’t let himself think anything at all, just smiles back, before rolling away. 

Bucky gets up and goes to the bathroom and Steve cleans up with a t-shirt from the hamper.  It’s not ideal, but he’s sleepy and warm and doesn’t want to make the effort, not if he doesn’t have to. 

When Bucky comes back, Steve pulls him down into the bed and tucks him safe into his arms.  It feels like seconds before Bucky’s soft and relaxed, breathing deep and even with sleep. Something inside of Steve stills at that.  There’s a kind of peace inside of him that’s both unfamiliar and unsettling. 

Steve presses a kiss to the back of Bucky’s neck, and another at the curve of his shoulder, before pulling him closer, matching his breathing and tumbling down into a dreamless sleep. 

Over the next few days, it seems like Bucky is different: he’s more tactile and tender, easier to laugh and he hasn’t left Steve’s bed in a week.  Steve’s starting to think it’s something he can get used to: Bucky in his bed, Bucky in his home, the two of them figuring it out as they go. 

Everything goes okay until one morning when Steve wakes up alone.  He reaches out for Bucky, and finds his side of the bed cold. Peeking one eye open, Steve realizes he’s alone and he feels...  

He  _ feels.  _

It takes him a few minutes to realize what’s going on, and as soon as he does, he vows to shut it down.  It’s one thing for he and Bucky to take advantage of their living situation. It’s another for Steve to start pining because of it.  Bucky’s always been crystal clear about the situation; Steve’s not going to fuck up their friendship over his tender little heart. 

A few nights later they’ve had another round of energetic sex.  It’s how it goes with them: One of them comes home high strung, and the other helps them take the edge off.  That’s all it is, and Steve reminds himself of that, again and again. 

As Bucky walks toward the bathroom, Steve catches himself staring at Bucky’s ass. 

“Goddamn, whoever you end up with better appreciate that ass.”

Bucky stops, turns, and looks at Steve.  “What?”

“Your ass.  It’s a goddamned menace, Barnes.  You’re gonna make someone very lucky.” 

It’s not that he wants to say it, but he has to.  He has to remind himself that this is a temporary thing, and that Bucky is his best friend, and he can’t afford to get attached. It’s a fence he built that first day, and now and then, he has to tend to it. 

Bucky looks at Steve, unmoving, the blinks. “I…” Then he shakes his head.  “I’m gonna have a shower.” 

“You want company? Not sure I can go again, but I don’t mind washing your back,” Steve says, which has always been code for eating Bucky’s ass. 

Looking down, Bucky says, “Nah, I’m good.  Probably gonna sleep in my own bed tonight, though.  I gotta be out early tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Steve says.  “Okay.” He tries not to read anything into it, just turns out the light and goes to sleep. He realizes the next morning that it’s the first time in over a month that Bucky hasn’t shared his bed. It feels discordant and wrong, but what’s he supposed to do? They just aren’t like that. 

.

Bucky moves out the next Thursday. 

The mid-September air has a whisper of cool on it, a welcome respite from the summer’s heat and humidity.  It’s laughable, because Steve knows they’re due for one last scorching Indian Summer before fall takes over in earnest, but as he stands on the curb in front of his apartment building, one last box braced against his hip, he can’t help but break out into goosebumps all over. 

“You didn’t have to do this,” Steve says.  “It’s not like I minded having you here.” 

He feels confused and out of sorts all over again, like his body and his mind aren’t quite in sync, like he did when he got his first big growth spurt, and his limbs weren’t entirely in his control. 

“C’mon,” Bucky says.  “You need your studio back.”

“I haven’t painted in months.”

“Point,” Bucky says.  “You’re making one.”

Steve feels high strung, like he’s losing something, which makes no sense at all. 

It’s not like he’s never going to see Bucky again; he’s only moving four stops away. They’ll hang out over the weekend.  They’re gonna be fine. 

.

As it turns out, Steve doesn’t see Bucky again for another two months.  When he does see him, Bucky looks kind of shitty, like he’s been getting over a cold. They hug and Steve holds him tight, maybe for a moment too long, but when he lets go, he feels like he’s gotten a missing piece of himself back. 

“The hell have you been?” Steve asks, and Bucky ducks his head down.  

“Just busy.  You know how the first few months of school goes.” Bucky’s a science teacher for middle schoolers and loves his work.  It’s true--the first of the year is always hell on his schedule. Still. 

“Missed you, jerk,” Steve says, giving Bucky one more squeeze. 

They’re at a bar with the gang to watch the football game, and if Bucky seems oddly detached, well, Steve’s going to chalk it up to being busy with work.  He gets it. He teaches art history at a couple of local colleges, mostly to maintain his benefits while he works on his own art. It’s a living. 

“Okay?” Steve asks later in the afternoon, and Bucky smiles, nods.  

“Gonna get out of here,” Bucky says.  “Got a round of labs to grade. You know how it goes.”

“Yeah,” Steve says.  “Okay. Hey, call me this week, I’ll come by with lunch.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, and he does, and though it doesn’t happen overnight, eventually, things start to feel like they’re back on track. 

They don’t sleep together again until the night of Bucky’s birthday party, when Bucky gets absolutely wasted and tries to give Steve a sloppy blow job in the elevator up to Bucky’s apartment.  By the time they actually get inside, Bucky’s got his hand in Steve’s pants and his tongue in Steve’s ear. 

They make it to the bedroom and Steve gets Bucky off fast, Bucky’s tongue stilling in Steve’s mouth as his orgasm overtakes him. By the time Steve gets back from grabbing a damp cloth, Bucky’s passed out, snoring heavily with his pants around his thighs. 

Steve takes a moment to look at him, really look, and sees the dark circles under his eyes, mouth soft with sleep, and hair a riot of waves, at least a month past due for a cut. Undressing him, Steve tucks him in, and leaves his gift (a Philp K. Dick anthology) on the breakfast bar where Bucky will see it first thing. 

It makes his heart ache, that Bucky’s unhappy right now, but time and again when Steve’s asked, Bucky’s shut him out with a short “I’m okay,” or “Everything’s fine, Steve, stop worrying.”

On the subway ride home, Steve wonders if maybe it was a mistake living together.  Maybe the benefits part of their relationship has run its course, because whatever this is, Bucky being weird and drunk and groping at Steve with something that isn’t lust, well, that’s not anything Steve wants or needs from him. 

He thinks about it a lot in the coming months, but Bucky doesn’t make any more sexual overtures, and then Steve meets Peggy, and then Bucky meets Maggie, and their lives settle into predictable rhythms, to the point where Steve can start imagining a future where he and Bucky drink cold beer on the back porch of an imaginary house upstate, while their children play in the sprinklers on a hot summer day. 

A couple of years later they’ll seek solace in each other once again, broken hearts mending as they turn to one another, trying to feel something other than sad. Getting over Peggy is like healing a broken bone: the process is so gradual that he thinks it might never happen, until one day he realizes that he can think of her fondly, but without anything hurting. Bucky seems to take less time getting over Maggie, but there’s definitely a point where Bucky loses that haunted, hunted look, and his smiles start to fall a little easier. 

He never tells Steve why he and Maggie split, and Steve doesn’t bring it up more than twice.  He wouldn’t make Bucky hurt for anything in the world. The day he walks into Sam and Nat’s apartment to the sound of Bucky’s laughter ringing out from another room is a day that Steve smiles bigger than he has in a year, maybe more. 

.

**Now**

Steve spends a miserable couple of days calling and texting Bucky, but doesn’t get a reply.  He gets it, he thinks. Steve tends to have a quick temper, that once vented, drops back down to baseline quickly.  Bucky’s always been the opposite, though. It takes Bucky forever to get angry, but once he does, it takes another forever for him to let it go. 

Steve knows this, and he wants to be patient, wants to give Bucky space. But. 

But God, he misses him. He aches with the wanting, but he hurts with missing his best friend. At some point, it all got tangled together for him, and he knows he’s gonna have to pull it apart. He just hopes they don’t unravel in the process. 

.

**Sam:** Football Sunday. Be here.

**SGR:** Eh, I’m working on a new piece.  Maybe next week?”

**Sam:** <unimpressed emoji>

**SGR:** <sweating emoji>

.

**SGR:** I’m not going to Sam/Nats on Sunday, fyi. 

**Bucky:** …

**Bucky:** …

**Bucky:** …

**Bucky:** ok.

**SGR:** So you should go.

**Bucky:** …

**Bucky:** …

.

**< voicemail>**

“Hey, Buck. It’s me, uhm, Steve. It’s been a week and, uhm, I just. I don’t know. I just want to talk to you. We can...it doesn’t have to be about that, okay? Just...tell me how your week was. 

…

Alright, anyway. I miss you.  I’m here.”

.

**SGR:** You ever gonna talk to me again? I’m sorry.  I’ll get over it, okay? I know I can. I’m sorry. 

.

**< voicemail>**

“Hey, it’s me again.  Look, I’m in the middle of a piece, so I’m gonna pass on Tony’s party this weekend.  Just...in case you care. I know you’re--you have Nat. Just. Anyway, I miss you. I get it.  Just...call when you want to talk.”

.

“Hey, it’s me again. I’m heading upstate to spend some time with Mom, so, you know.  I don’t know, in case you wanted…. This is--if you wanted to come, or if you wanted to do something with our friends, you know, I won’t be...uh, around . I’m--I miss you.”

…

**SGR:** Are you ever going to talk to me again?

**Bucky:** Holy shit will you back off? 

**SGR:** No. 

.

“What?” Bucky’s voice is angry and tense.

“I--I didn’t think you’d answer.”

There’s a pause, and a sigh, and the next time he speaks, Bucky sounds tired.  “What do you want, Steve?”

“I want--just you.  I mean, just to talk. I get that you’re surprised, but--”  Steve sighs, then takes another breath, figuring he should just go for it. “I don’t know why you’re so mad at me, Buck, but I’ll do whatever you want to fix it.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything for long moments, and Steve lets the silence play out on the line. 

Finally, he says, “The fact that you don’t get why I’m mad is why I’m mad Steve.”

And doesn’t that take the wind right out of his sails? 

“Can we talk?” he finally says.  “Anywhere, you name it. I--I miss you.” He hates how soft his voice is, how weak he sounds. Hates it.

But he is.  And he misses Bucky so much. It’s not that they’ve maintained constant contact over the years.  There are definitely times when they’ve gone a week or two without talking, texting. But that was always a matter of circumstance.  It was never a matter of--of choice. Not with them. 

There’s another long pause before Bucky finally says, “Fine.  Delancey’s. Tomorrow at 7? That work?”

“Yeah,” Steve says in a rush.  “Yeah, that’s--that’s good. I’ll see you there. Thank you, Buck.”

Bucky blows out another long breath before saying, “Okay.  I’m gonna--I gotta go. Uh, bye.”

Steve hears the click as Bucky hangs up, says goodbye to the silence anyway. 

.

“C’mon, stop that.”  Sam looks over at Steve with something like menace in his eyes, and Steve sighs and pulls his watch off.  He’s been tapping his fingernail against the glass in time with the music playing, a nervous habit he knows drives Sam nuts. 

“Sorry, Sam,” Steve says, and tucks one hand under his thigh.  “Hey, thanks. For coming. You didn’t, uh, have to.”

“Dude, relax,” Sam says, and reaches out to give Steve’s shoulder a squeeze.  He met Steve there after work, keeping him company while Steve waits for Bucky to show.  Delancey’s is busy, but not packed. Steve took a couple of seats at the end of the bar, tucked into the corner where they can have just enough privacy to talk.  It’s kind of perfect, actually. The low hum of a dozen conversations gives him the space to think about what he wants to say, but Sam being there keeps him from practicing and sounding trite. 

“How long have you two been friends?” Sam asks. 

Steve shrugs.  “Since we were eight, so...twenty-three years, this fall.”

“You really think he’s gonna throw away twenty years of friendship over this?”

Shrugging, Steve takes a sip of his beer.  

Sam looks at him and rolls his eyes.  “Probably not, right?”

“Yeah, probably not. Hey, so you said you’re working on a new play?  What’s it about?”

Grinning, Sam launches into an explanation of his latest work, a murder mystery, and Steve’s intrigued enough to ask question after question, and to forget to be quite so nervous by the time Sam looks at his watch and says he has to go. 

“I got Nat waiting on me,” he says, and leans in for a hug.  “Do the both of you a favor and hear him out, okay?” Sam asks, and of course. Of course. 

“Of course, Sam.  I’m not even--this isn’t even about that,” Steve says.  “I just miss him.”

“Alright.  Call me later if you need to, but try not to need to.  We have reservations and Nat doesn’t have to be at work tomorrow until late.”

“Shit,” Steve says.  “Is it your anniversary?  Sam, I’m--”

“Our anniversary is in May.  Remember, you were there?”

“Yeah.  Sorry, just…”

“You’re gonna be okay, you know that, right?  The two of you, eventually, you’re gonna--”

But Steve’s not listening because Bucky just walked in the door.  He’s wearing his thick, dark blue pea coat and a soft-looking cream-colored scarf.  His cheeks are ruddy and his eyes are clear, and he looks. 

God, he looks good.

“Alright, that’s my cue,” Sam says.  He stops to give Bucky a hug and a few words on his way out.  Steve can’t hear them, so he just stands next to his stool, one hand on the bar, the other stuffed into his jeans. 

When Bucky comes near, Steve makes an abortive attempt at a hug, but everything on Bucky’s face is saying keep back, so Steve does. Instead, Steve signals the bartender and orders Bucky’s favorite beer, then hunches over the bar, stealing glances at Bucky from the side of his eye.

When the bartender drops the drink, that’s when Steve turns in his seat to face Bucky.  

They spend a moment just looking at each other before Steve finally speaks. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“Okay.  Why?”

“What?”

Looking down, Bucky shakes his head then reaches for his beer and has a long drink.  Steve watches his throat bob as he swallows, notices the little bit of scruff along his jaw.  He’s been wearing it like that lately. Steve may have stalked his social media. 

When Bucky finally puts the drink down, he turns and looks at Steve.  “When you said that, what did you think was going to happen?”

Steve shrugs because this is the question that everyone asks, and he still doesn’t know the answer. “I just--it didn’t seem right, not telling you.  I didn’t--.” He shrugs. “You were flirting. I didn’t want to--to have sex. Like that. I didn’t seem right.”

“That’s always been your problem, you know that?  You’re so sure about what’s right, about what should be, and you don’t ever think of the consequences, you just do.  It’s one of the things I love about you, but goddamn is it a pain in my ass.”

It’s an old fight, going back to the first time they met, with Steve scrapping with an older kid, and Bucky coming along to bail him out. It’s an old fight, and Steve hopes they have it a hundred more times.  “You know me,” he says. 

Bucky gives him a long look.  “Some days not so much.”

“Come on,” he says.  “You’ve known me your whole life.  I’m still the same guy, and if this isn’t--if you don’t want this, that’s okay.  We’ll get past it. I know we can. I just--I thought--I hoped--you might want to try?

Bucky gives him a look and Steve remembers a hundred games of gin, where Steve was sure he had the cards, only to have Bucky go out and leave him with a handful of faces. 

“You asshole,” Bucky says.  “We already tried.”

Steve blinks.

Exhales hard. 

That night--that one night when they’d made love by moonlight, when they’d drowned in each other, and never said a word, the whole night plays out before Steve’s unseeing eyes. How he was never sure which one of them moved first.  

How it  _ felt.  _

“What do you mean?” he asks, because back then, they weren’t...it wasn’t like that.  They’d agreed. It wasn’t  _ like _ that. 

Bucky’s face turns into something like a sneer before he looks back down at his glass. He speaks without looking at Steve.

“I mean we were in a relationship, Steve.  We were--I thought.” Bucky takes a long deep breath and holds it before letting it out slow. “I can’t do this with you again.  We had our shot and it didn’t work out. Timing, whatever. I can’t do it again. I don’t want to.”

Standing, Bucky reaches for his wallet, but Steve reaches out to stay him, his hand on Bucky’s arm.  “That night. That night when you--I thought--. I think about that night all the time,” he says, naked emotion in his voice. 

Bucky puts both hands on the bar and pauses, before pushing away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky says, his tone even. “If you were feeling some kind of way, you never said. But neither of us can go back.  We’ll--we’re gonna get through this, but you gotta give me some space, Steve. You can’t--.” Bucky finally and turns to look at him. “You can’t fight your way through this one, you gotta just let it lie awhile.”

Steve’s lungs feel tight, like he’s been holding his breath, so he breathes deep and does, then lets it go.  “I didn’t know,” Steve says. “I’m sorry.”

“You say that a lot,” Bucky says, then meets Steve’s eyes.  “I’ll call you.” 

And then Steve watches as Bucky walks away.  

Steve’s still sitting on the barstool two hours later when Natasha walks in. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” she says, dark red waves bobbing as she climbs up on the barstool.

The chagrined smile on his face feels like a fraud. “Sam send you?”  And then, “Shit! Your night! Sam said it was special.”

Natasha’s Mona Lisa smile peeks out from the corners of her mouth.  “My husband has a way of making every night special, when he wants to.” She winks and waves down the bartender, requesting a vodka tonic, and Steve can’t help but think how like her the drink is.  Straight forward and direct, acerbic, yet refreshing. 

Bucky met Nat freshman year, the two of them hitting it off like wildfire.  They both wanted to teach, eventually, with Nat taking dance classes with the hopes of opening her own studio, and Bucky focusing on hard sciences. 

Eventually, Bucky started dragging her along to parties, brunches, and nights out with the rest of the gang.  Sam took one look and was a goner. They’d had a rocky road, but once they’d settled, well, it was the kind of love that made Steve a believer. 

Nat takes a sip of her drink, then looks over at Steve. Her assessment is brief but somehow Steve feels like she’s seen right through him. 

“So,” she says.  “Tell me about Peggy Carter.”

“What?” Of everything under the sun, this is the last thing Steve expects to hear. 

“What?” Nat parrots.  “I was in Russia. I never really got to know her.”

Steve sits back in his stool, thinks back to meeting Peggy, loving her.  And he did. Love her. 

“Peggy was...she was amazing.  She was so fucking smart, always made me think about things, didn’t take shit from anyone, but still was, you know. Feminine.  Like, you know, all woman.” Steve smiles thinking about the fire in her eyes. “She was hilarious, too. In that witty, English way, you know? She could just drop these lines, like bombs, and suddenly everyone’d be laughing.  She was great. I do think you would have liked her, Nat. She was…” Steve shrugs. 

“Hm.” Nat says, cocking her head at Steve.  “How’d you two break up?” 

Steve groans because Nat  _ was _ around for that. “Her student visa was up.  I asked her to stay, bought a ring. She never, you know, led me on.  She was always clear about intending to go back to England. I just...hoped I could change her mind.”

“But you didn’t.”

Steve holds his hands up.  “Obviously.”

Natasha looks at him, blinks.  “How hard did you try?”

“What?  I bought a ring, Nat.  I tried.”

“You didn’t offer to go with her.” It’s not a question.

Shrugging, Steve picks up his beer.  His ma had asked him the same thing, once.  But, as much as he’d loved Peggy, and it was love, he knew he couldn’t be happy living halfway across the world from his family, his friends.  It’s the one thing that made letting her go a little easier: knowing that she felt the same about the life she’d left behind.

“It’s not that I didn’t love her Nat, I did.  But her whole life is there, and mine is here.”

“Oh, I get it.  Sam offered to follow me to Russia, but...we needed the break.  I needed the break.”

Steve nods.  “So why’d you want to know about Peggy?”

Nat shrugs, and gives him a long, searching look, before she sighs.  “You’re not usually this dumb.”

“Hey!”

“How long have you been in love with him, Steve? How long really?”

The answer sits on his tongue, heavy with things that he hasn’t yet acknowledged--even to himself--but he says it anyway.  “I think--I think probably my whole life.”

“And if he was, say, taking a teaching gig in South America?” 

Everything she’s been trying to say comes to the fore.  “I’d follow him in a heartbeat,” Steve says, fighting the thickness in his throat at the idea of Bucky going away.

The smile Nat gives him is soft, kind. “Maybe he should know that.”

.

Bucky opens his front door looking startled and a little pissed.  That’s okay. That’s fair. 

“We’re not done,” Steve says, as soon as Bucky opens up. 

“Well, I guess if you’re making the rules,” Bucky says, and stands back as Steve pushes in. 

On the walk over from the bar, Steve’s built up a head of steam, getting angry as he thought back to all the time he’d pushed away affection in the afterglow.  He figures every good tragedy takes two, and they’ve both been a couple of jerks.

“I’m in love with you.  I’m in love with you and I have been in love with you for...Jesus, forever, Buck. It’s been forever.  And I know I never said. But you never said either. So if  _ we _ got fucked up? There were two of us in that bed. We both took the chance, so we can both take the blame.”

Scoffing, Bucky turns away and walks toward the kitchen.  “Yeah, you were so in love with me you proposed to Peggy.”

“Hey,” Steve says, and this time he is angry. 

“You know what I meant,” Bucky says. He fishes a couple of beers out of the fridge, uncaps them. 

Steve clenches his teeth, feels his jaw tick.  He thinks back to when he met Peggy, about eight months after Bucky moved out.  Steve was walking around feeling lousy all the time, loneliness bone deep, something that sat low in his belly, even as he smiled and told everyone--including himself--that he was fine. 

He won’t cheapen what he had with Peggy by denying it, and he won’t listen to Bucky do it either. 

“You know I loved her,” he finally says. 

Bucky gives him a tight smile. “Yeah, Steve, I do.  That’s kind of the point.”

“If you wanted more, you could have said. You’re the one who set the terms.”

“Jesus Christ, Steve, I didn’t think I had to spell it out for you. We were fucking  _ living _ together.  We were in a relationship.  You’re the one who blew us off.”

“I’m the one?” Steve asks, and reels.  This is every terrible fight that they’ve never had, years of hurts and resentments coming to the fore, things he thought he made his peace with rising from the dead.  “All you had to do was say the word, Bucky. All you had to do was ask, and I would have--”

“What?  You would have what?” Bucky’s just as angry, just as hurt, and Steve is equal parts pissed off about it and thankful that they’re at least back on the same page. 

“I would have--” Bucky fires back, and then stops.  “I don’t know.” 

Steve watches as the anger dies right out of Bucky, deflating him, and all at once he seems smaller, less alive.  They stare at each other for a moment, and Steve knows that if they’re going to move forward, one of them has to be brave. 

He thinks about what lies in the balance: not their friendship, he knows that one way or another, their friendship will survive.  The rest though? The rest is the whole wide world, and that’s worth fighting for. That’s worth everything. 

“Maybe if I’d known loving you was on the table, things would have been different,” Steve says.

Bucky walks over to Steve, hands him one of the beers.  “Maybe I didn’t know I had to spell it out. I thought…” He shrugs and walks over to the living room, sits down on the couch. “I felt like it was so obvious. Like  _ I _ was so obvious. It fuckin’ killed me when I realized you weren’t in it with me.”

“Didn’t think that was allowed,” Steve says.  He takes the chair across from the couch, sitting forward, playing with the bottle in his hands, as he takes in the situation.  Bucky let him, and Bucky’s hearing him out. The part of him that’s been heartsick for the last month finally cracks open, the seed of hope sprouting, pushing its way to the light.

“Maybe we both thought things that weren’t right.  Maybe we can start there.”

“Do you regret it?  Taking the chance?” It takes Steve a moment to get back on the same page, and when he does, he takes a deep breath.  What would be different if they’d never shared that first kiss? What would be different if he’d never touched Bucky like that, never let himself come undone in the arms of his best friend? The answer comes so fast is surprises him, and he smiles.

“Guess it depends.”

“On?”

“I miss the fuck out of my best friend, but the rest of it? The--the love? I figure that was gonna happen no matter what.”

“I can’t go back to what it was.”

“Christ, no, Buck. I can’t either.  If we’re just friends, or if--if it’s more, I think we gotta start all over again.”

“And what if it doesn’t work? What if--what if we don’t--”

Getting up, Steve sits down next to Bucky, then reaches out and takes one of Bucky’s hands in his, runs his thumb across Bucky’s knuckles.  “Then we’ll start over, and again and again, and again if we have to. We’ll start over until we get it right.” He chances a look up and his heart does a flip in his chest.  Bucky is starting at him, his eyes wet and red-rimmed, the tip of his nose going pink the way it does when he cries. 

Bucky looks at where their hands are joined.  “D’ya promise?” he asks. “No matter what?”

“I promise,” Steve says, and he takes the chance and pulls Bucky in tight, wrapping both arms around him. 

Bucky presses his face into Steve’s neck, and it’s awkward, the two of them holding on while sitting side by side. Steve hears the sniffle and smiles, adoring that Bucky’s letting him have this, letting him see his emotion. 

“I should have said, back then.  I should have… You’re so much braver than me, I should have said.” Bucky’s voice is soft, muffled, and Steve holds him tighter, willing to be whatever Bucky needs in this moment. “What you said earlier.  That night?” Bucky draws back and looks at Steve, and Steve sees every ounce of sincerity that Bucky’s giving him. “That was the best night of my life, Steve. The very best.”

That seed of hope flowers, bursts bright inside of Steve’s chest, reaching for the sun that is his heart. 

“Mine too,” Steve says.  “I love you.”

Bucky holds him tighter, pushing his face into Steve’s neck, his arms around Steve’s shoulders. “I love you.”

It might be the best thing Steve’s ever heard.  He feels the way his eyes get hot, his throat tightens, and he has to laugh.  “We’re such a couple of saps,” he says, smiling and pressing a kiss against Bucky’s hair.

He can feel Bucky’s answering smile against his skin. 

“God, come here,” he says, and wrestles Bucky onto his lap, so that he can look up, and Bucky can look down. “That day,” Steve says, and leans up to press a kiss at the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “Is this what you thought would happen?”

Chuckling, Bucky ducks his head down, trying to hide his flush.  “Honestly?” he says, finally meeting Steve’s eyes again. “I was just kind of drunk and really wanted my dick sucked.”

“God, you’re an asshole,” Steve says, but he’s smiling, each minute buoyed on the bright joy of having Bucky in his arms, mirroring his grin. 

Then Bucky’s smile falls, and his eyes turn sincere.  “I don’t regret it.”

That’s really all Steve needs.  He leans up, captures Bucky’s mouth with his, and kisses him until they’re both breathless. 

“We should fuck,” Steve says, placing a series of kisses against the line of Bucky’s jaw.  The stubble scratches his lips and he rubs them against it, feeling the tingle and burn. 

“We should do a lot more than that,” Bucky says, and leans down to catch Steve’s bottom lip in his teeth.

Steve grins to take his lip back, then leans up to nip at Bucky’s. “Yeah.  We should do everything,” he says, his fingers sliding under the hem of Bucky’s sweater. 

“We’re gonna,” Bucky says. 

And they do. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom is kind and generous beyond words. Thank you all for reading. <3


End file.
